Just a week or so ago, the Motion Picture Academy awarded Oscars for the 80th consecutive year, and I am preparing to award DIDOs for the fourth consecutive time.
You can get an Oscar for being terrific just once, but not a DIDO. For example, Marion Cotillard won an Oscar for best actress in "La Vie en Rose." Whoever heard of Marion Cotillard? One great performance (it really was great) and she gets an Oscar. We may never hear her name again.
This DIDO business started in 2005, when we asked the question "Where's the academy that recognizes the little guys?" Then we self-appointed ourselves as that academy, and called our awards the DIDO awards.
DIDO stands for Day-In-Day-Out. DIDO awards go to folks who perform in seldom-seen positions for giving solid performances, not just once, but day in and day out, all year long. No flashes in the pan (Marion Cotillard?), no one day marvels. Only those demonstrating consistency as tested by time.
Names of the DIDO award winners are never given. Recognition is not what motivates them. Most would be embarrassed to be singled out. But more importantly, my descriptions will undoubtedly fit people you know about too, so you can fill in your own names.
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When you and I are getting our night's sleep, the night crew is working in the big stores around the area. One group is working all night stocking the shelves with merchandise for the next day. Another group is the maintenance gang. They're spending the nights cleaning the bathrooms, scrubbing, sweeping, vacuuming, and shaping up the place. And while they're stocking the shelves and cleaning toilets, the night crews outside are plowing and clearing the streets and highways of snow and the night crews in our factories are turning out their products. Are these night crews being paid any more because they're working while we're sleeping? What do you think? These night workers get the 2008 Graveyard Shift DIDO Award.
Every day and night, day in and day out, the 16 wheelers are rolling up and down the highways delivering our groceries, our gas, our building materials, our clothes and most of the rest of our daily needs. If they stopped rolling for two days in a row, we'd start running out of things. You have to hand it to those over the road drivers who push through miles and miles of boredom, fatigue, dangerous drivers, bad weather (and greasy food?) -- they deliver the goods. These guys and gals win the 16 Wheeler DIDO Award for 2008.
Every holiday, every Sunday and every weekend when folks are enjoying a day or two off, we can get gas, groceries, go out for a burger and generally do most convenience business that we do the rest of the week, and we can do it because somebody has been assigned to work those least-desirable days. They scramble and serve us because a job is a job.
I sometimes feel guilty that I have the day off when I'm buying a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk on a Sunday afternoon, and the person serving me doesn't. Sometimes they ask -- "What's it like outside today?" I always tell them it's lousy, a good day to be working inside, and "You're lucky you don't have the day off." These hard working folks get the Holiday and Weekend Warrior DIDO Award for 2008.
Waitresses work when everybody else is enjoying a bite to eat, day in and day out. They have to be friendly, fast, courteous, patient with jerks and complainers, have a sense of humor, good memory, be neat, clean, diplomatic and hard working. And how many are holding down two jobs? Do they deserve generous tips? Yes. Do they get them? You tell me. To waitresses coast to coast, we give the Gotta Keep Smiling DIDO Award for 2008.
You know people just like the ones listed above. Day in and day out, they are a cut above the norm. You won't read about them in any paper (except this one), and you won't see them on TV, but they do more to make life worth living then Marion Cotillard, Tom Cruise, George Clooney and Brad Pitt combined. Send them a copy of this article and tell them you appreciate everything they're doing, then give them a sincere pat on the back.
